Reason, Self-Transcendence, and Modernity in Hegel’s Phenomenology
William F. Bristow
Oxford Handbooks Online June 6, 2017 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199355228.013.6 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues that the successive forms of purposive activity in Hegel's 'Reason chapter' generate a general criticism of modern individualism, and that the transition to spirit contains a tension between the realization and repudiation of reason. |
Abstract
Chapter 5 displays narrative unity in the “Reason chapter” of Hegel’s Phenomenology by showing how consciousness as reason becomes, and takes successive forms as, purposive activity: first, as organism, then, as end-directed human action, and finally, as human action that is its own end. The successive forms of purposive activity in the chapter are generated as attempts to resolve the overarching tension between rational consciousness’s certainty of itself as an existing individual and its certainty of being all reality. The internal criticism of the successive forms of rational consciousness in the chapter amounts to a general criticism of distinctively modern self-consciousness, particularly of its individualism. It is argued that the alleged resolution of reason’s tension in the transition at the end of the chapter to spirit, in particular, to ethical life, itself contains a tension between the realization of reason, on the one hand, and its repudiation, on the other.
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